Lessons At Last
by KellyTyler521
Summary: (Working Title.) Miracles fic with a dab of Angel and a sprinkling of ER... ok, I threw in a tiny bit of Ally, too. Girlie added onto the cast. Telepaths, demons, cults, all that plus a fun ghost. Post finale, please R&R.


Quick note: I don't own any of the Miracles or ER characters in this story. I own Kelly, therefore you may not use her. Miracles Characters and its concepts are owned by not me. ER Characters are owned by not me. Angel Characters and its concepts are owned by Joss Whedon. Ally McBeal and The Practice are both owned by David E. Kelley. I don't have any money, so don't bother trying to sue me.

_Chapter one:_

"Excuse me?" A guy says from behind me. "Who are you?"

"I should be asking that of you." I say, after turning around from my desk. "This happens every time I leave town for more than a week. I'm Kelly Tyler."

"Paul Callan." The guy says, offering a hand.

"Newbie? Or did Alva actually stumble upon someone with some experience this time?"

"What do you mean?" Paul asks.

"Nothing, nothing at all. I'm sorry, I'm being rude. Nice to meet you Mr. Callan, please excuse my attitude, I'm kind of jet lagged." I brush my hair out of my face, as I look him over. About six feet tall, just over half a foot taller than I am, short, dark brown hair, completely unlike mine, which is a good thing, dark brown eyes to match. Rather reminds me of Johnny Depp as far as bone structure goes. Same rather high cheekbones, large eyes, smallish slender nose, what I think of as a Cupid's bow mouth, and relatively pale.

"Paul, please."

"Right. Call me what you will."

"So, uh, do you work with Keel as well?"

"Yeah. I just got back into town this morning. I had a mind to sit down and catch up on case files, but perhaps you can fill me in later, since I have so many calls to return now evidently."

"Oh, of course. I didn't mean to interrupt."

"You weren't." I mutter, as I check the files I had out. "Italy and Greece, for the most part."

"What?" Paul asks, seeming barely shaken.

"That's where I've been. Oh, I know you didn't ask, but I think you wanted to. Was I wrong?"

"No, but how did you know what I wanted to ask?"

"Two ways. One, it makes sense that you'd want to know where I'd been that I couldn't have met you at first. Two, I'm telepathic. Since you're here I assume that you've heard tell of telepaths before, but for the record I don't go very deeply into anyone's mind when I do something like that."

"So that's why you're here."

"It's rather a major selling point for Alva. People who had been through real miracles, or have shown some sort of supernatural ability."

"I, uh, I've kind of picked up on that."

"Well, I'd like to talk to you more later, but I really need to get home right now. Would you please tell Alva that I'm back in town if you see him before I do?"

"Oh, sure."

"Thank you." I say, gathering up my jacket, a few of the thicker folders, and my satchel.

"What about Evelyn?"

"I plan to surprise her, I always do. Why?"

"I just wanted to know if you knew her."

"Should always just ask me. Roundabout can backfire sometimes."

"I'll remember that."

"Nice to meet you, anyway."

"Likewise, nice to meet you Ms. Tyler."

"No Ms., Mrs., or Dr., please? It just confuses people."

"All right."

"See you later." I say, heading towards the door.

"Yeah." Paul says, as I head out of the office.

I think about what might have been going on while I was doing the nearly annual European search for real miracles as I head down the stairs. 'Knowing Alva, they probably all went kicking and screaming – no, kicking and _whining_, knowing Alva – somewhere like Nevada to investigate a stigmata combined with a possession.' I think to myself as I unlock my car. I take out my cell phone and check my first few voice mail messages as I close my door. The most troubling are the messages I had got about a kid in Arizona who was healing people while in the mean time dying himself because of a rare blood disorder and the investigator working for the Catholic church working on a report about the event. I set the phone in the holder attached to my dashboard and check to make sure my files and satchel are still in order on my passenger seat. "No screwing around in here, Theo. Those files are important and I will banish you to the worst Hell dimension I can find if my interior gets damaged." I mutter, as I start my car, vividly recalling the rental fees I had to pay in Venice and Athens because of my dead practical joker buddy.

I get to my apartment rather easily, thankfully uneventful as far as supernatural events go. I did have to scare the living snot out of some brat at the Starbucks, but I don't really think of that as an event since it happens so often daily. I notice that someone finally got the owner to redecorate the interior of my building as I walk up to my apartment.

"Oh, Ms. Tyler, I didn't know you were back so soon." An old woman says to me as I pass her in the hall on my floor.

"Oh, hello, Mrs. Adome. I didn't see you there. How have you been?" I say, stopping to turn back to her.

"Well as can be expected, I suppose."

"Nonsense. Chances are that you're doing better than most of the people in this building. There's a reason that people say that you will outlive us all, you know."

"Yes? Oh." Mrs. Adome says laughing. "Oh, dearie, I have your mail."

"I'll come by to pick it up later."

"Very well then."

"Indeed. It's very good to be home again. Nice talking with you."

"You too." She says as she continues down the hall.

I hear my phone ringing as I unlock my door and am for once thankful when Theo forces the lock open before I get my key out. I hurry over to the kitchen, tossing satchel and coat on the sofa as I go. I pick up my cat before he can start to try to weave around my legs and set him on the kitchen counter as I pick up the phone.

"Tyler here, go ahead."

"Where the hell have you been for the past month!" A woman yells at me on the other end of the line.

"Athens and Rome. I take it you really needed me recently?"

"No, you think!" She cries sarcastically.

"Kerry, seriously, I've been doing a job. I told John, Luka, Haleh, Lizzie and Abby before I left. I only told Abby because she made me, and I told Haleh and Luka so that one of them would tell you."

"Well neither of them did."

"Well, did the great Dr. Kerry Weaver ever think to ask?" I ask. There's dead silence on the other end of the line, so my cat meows. "Brilliant, Kerr'."

"Next time tell me directly."

"Can't promise that unless you spend every second of your shift inside the hospital."

"Not that again," She mumbles. "In that case, I guess you're screwed."

"Not by you, Weaver."

"Don't play around with me! Now, I want you here Thursday."

"Already got it set up, I'll be there by seven."

"Make it six, or you're fired."

"The best I can do is seven, thanks to the airport. And PS, you can't fire me."

"Yeah yeah. Where are you?"

"Boston, where else?"

"I'll see you at seven." Weaver says, before he hangs up.

"Bloody Hell, she bought it." I mumble, shutting off my phone to check my answering machine. "Has Tommy been feeding you like I asked him to? No? Damn. Well, c'mon, Alec, I'll get you the good stuff." I say, as I get Alec's cat food out of the cupboard. I pour my cat a meal, and put the food away, Alec starts eating and I get out the dog food. "Here Critter, chow down." I call to my dog, pouring him a meal, and a big dog walks towards me from the other side of the apartment. I set down the refilled dog dish away from where the cat's still eating, walk into the living room and flop down on the couch to listen to my messages, flipping through the first file briefly to get the gist.

"Yeah, _I'm_ the black sheep of the family, I'll _never_ have _any_ friends. Yeah, right. That premonition really came true." I mutter to myself sarcastically, as I read further and my answering machine beeps to let me know it's done.

I glance around quickly to find the remote to my stereo system, which I find a minute later underneath the edge of the couch, and turn on my radio as I settle in with Critter to read every detail of the files I have. I quickly get frustrated with the people calling in to my radio station and the commercials that are being played for ten minutes between every other song, so I turn the radio off and set my file aside long enough to put a CD in my CD changer. I hit "play" on my remote as I cross the room back to the couch. Twenty minutes later I put aside the first file and stretch out to ponder what in the world could have intrigued Alva about a group of comic book Satanists – or, that is to say, a bunch of teenage boys who got the idea that they could become so powerful that they could rule the world if they killed half the neighborhood's population worth of dogs, cats and birds in the name of worship of Satan from a comic book series. I decide that the boys must have accidentally stumbled onto something that resembled a method of sacrifice that an ancient tribe must have practiced in some close region or another, and move on to the more recent files.

Three hours later, after finishing the last two files, fixing myself dinner, and leaving messages for a few people, I'm finally sitting down to eat – something I hadn't actually had time to do in nearly five months – and someone has the audacity to ring my doorbell. I swear in disgust as I toss my napkin onto the table next to my plate and get up to answer the door.

"One of these days I'm gonna go back to having servants." I mumble, as I smooth over my blouse before opening the door.

"Hi." Paul says, standing in the hall, apparently alone.

"Hello." I say cautiously, ushering him inside.

"Nice to see you again, Kelly." Alva Keel says, fallowing Paul in from beside the doorway.

"One of these days you're going to try to do that and I'll wind up shutting the door on your face, Keel." I say, not bothering to hide my annoyance.

"Interrupting something?" Alva asks, looking around my front room.

"Just dinner."

"Oh, I didn't know this was a bad time." Paul says apologetically, no longer taking off his coat.

"No such thing, really. Since it's almost always a bad time with me. Please, take off your coats and have a seat."

"Rather ironic, really. We came to take you to dinner and fill you in." Alva says, as I hang his and Paul's coats, and as they take seats on the couch.

"Is that so? Well, if you would like, you two could have dinner with me here. It wouldn't take that long for me to fix something for you."

"I wouldn't want to impose." Paul says, as I lean against a chair near the couch.

"Nonsense." Alva tells Paul. "We would love to stay. What are you having?" He says to me.

"Chicken fettuccini alfredo."

"What?" Paul asks.

"New recipe?" Alva says curiously.

"Not really, I just don't make it that much."

"What is it?" Paul asks, rather curious.

"Grilled chicken with fettuccini pasta, marinated vegetables, and a cheese sauce. Italian, usually served with white wine." I say, patiently imitating a waitress I had the other night.

"Sounds good." Alva says, not overly enthusiastically.

"And this doesn't take long?" Paul asks skeptically.

"Not very, no."

"All right." Paul says.

"Good. I'll be right back." I say, heading into the kitchen once again. "So Alva, where's Evelyn tonight?" I call from the kitchen, as I get two table settings out of the cupboard.

"I couldn't get a hold of her, she must have her cell phone off." He answers in kind from the living room.

"Ah, then I owe her." I say, putting the leftovers from my dinner into a Tupperware container and getting some more pots and pans out of the cabinet. "One or both of you please do me a favor and set the table?"

"You really do have a nice apartment." Paul says, as he comes into the kitchen for the place settings.

"Thank you." I say, starting the vegetables and the pasta. "I am sorry for being so short with you earlier, this trip had been something else entirely. Fair warning that you may still see more attitude tonight, depending on how much Alva has to fill me in on."

"I see. I'll keep that in mind." Paul says, as I notice him looking around my kitchen as if trying to find something.

"They're there on the counter."

"Oh, thanks." He says, taking them and going into the dining room.

"So I get off the plane and see this woman dressed in all this old fashioned garb, looking entirely lost and on the verge of tears, this is Naples, by the way," I say a few minutes later, carrying two plates of hot chicken alfredo into the dining room. "She looks vaguely familiar, so I walk up to her and ask her what's wrong. She tells me that something is very wrong and that she's very late, but she can't find her fiancée, Andreas. At this point she bursts into tears, so I start to lead her through the airport. We sit down, and we talk, and I agree to help her find Andreas."

"Excuse me, but how does this interest us in any way?" Alva asks.

"Well I'm sure she has a point sooner or later." Paul tells him.

"Thank you." I say just a bit surprised, as Alva takes another bite.

"You're welcome. This is very good." Paul says, spearing a carrot with his fork.

"Thanks." I say, trying rather desperately to hide my mystification at this point. "Anyway, I head for the car rental counter and I loose her. I shrug it off and figure that she spotted Andreas and walked off without me. Blah blah blah, I get to the hotel, look up some info on her and Andreas, and as I'm printing all of this out, she appears in the doorway of my bathroom wearing an old fashioned nightie."

"Disgruntled spirit?" Paul asks through a mouthful of pasta.

"Uh, not really."

"How did it turn out?" Alva asks.

"Turns out that she and Andreas died together, but they had only found and buried _his_ body. Now, that's enough to wake any woman from eternal slumber, but the real hell of it all is that I couldn't even find his grave, it had been moved several times and the original site was lost. She decided after we couldn't find her fiancée's remains that she's just going to haunt me until she can find peace."

"And then what?" Alva asks.

"And then nothing. I couldn't muster up the lack of heart to do a banishing spell, so she's been hanging around ever since. I call her Ghost Theodora, or Theo, whichever I feel like at the time."

"Isn't she dangerous?" Paul asks.

"Not intentionally. She once got so excited about a fair that she crawled in front of me while I was driving, blocking my vision, and I crashed into a tree, but no one was hurt."

"So she's like an enthusiastic friend who just happens to be non-corporeal some of the time." Alva asks.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"How are you going to live like that?" Paul asks.

"I don't think it's exactly an impossible problem, Paul."

"Maybe, but aren't you the least bit paranoid that she's going to do something suddenly that might get you – oh, I don't know, - arrested?" Paul says to me.

"Not in the slightest."

"Kelly e già ho fatto gli accordi in modo che non entrassimo in altra difficoltà. Abbiamo fatto un compromesso che abbiamo risolto la prima settimana. Non desidererei disturbare o danneggiare chiunque." A woman suddenly says from the entry of a hallway not far away, causing Paul to drop his fork. (("Kelly and already I have made the agreements so that we did not enter in other difficulty. We have made a compromise that we have resolved the first week. I would not wish to disturb or to damage anyone."))

"Theodora?" Alva asks her, as she walks towards the table.

"Sì. Ciao, bello a contatto voi, Kelly ha detto niente a me di voi." Theo says cheerfully. (("Yes. Hello, beautiful to contact you, Kelly it has said nothing to me of you."))

"I-I'm sorry, I don't speak Italian. What, uh, is she saying?" Paul says, hesitantly.

"Hang on and I'll give you a translation." I tell him. "Theodora, questi sono i miei amici, Paul e Alva. Paul's nuovo." (("Theodora, these are my friends, Paul and Alva. Paul' s new."))

"Piacevole." Theo says. (("Nice."))

"Si." I say in return. (("Yes.")) "First thing she told you was that we made an arrangement in Italy and that she didn't want to harm anyone anyway. Then she just said hi and that I hadn't said anything about either of you."

"And what was that about me?" Paul asks.

"Just introductions."

"Would you tell her that it's nice to meet her?"

"Paul, non parla Italiano, ma lui desideri dire esso è piacevole a contatto voi." I say to Theo. (("Paul, he does not speak Italian, but it desires to say it is pleasant to contact you."))

"Sì, piacevole nel ritorno." She says. (("Yes, nice in the return."))

"That's nice to meet you, too." I tell Paul.

"Per del amore dio." Theodora says under her breath. (("For the love of God.")) "If you must translate for me, will you not at least translate _precisely_?"

"No, of course not." I say, sarcastically.

"You speak English?" Paul asks, obviously surprised.

"Yes." Theo says, openly amused.

"I can't believe we're sitting at a dinner table, conversing with a ghost." Alva mutters.

"Don't complain. I've been through worse." Theo says almost scoldingly.

"Stranger things _have_ happened right here in this very apartment." I say, matter of factly.

"Hard to believe, Tyler." Alva says.

"Yes, well. Theo, are you going to be staying, or is something up?"

"Nothing at all, I just want to get caught up as well." Theo says as she takes a seat next to Paul.

"All right. So, Alva, what sort of messes have you been getting Evie into this time?"

"Mm-m," He says, in the middle of a drink. "No trouble at all!"

"Really. Well then what was that business with the jet?"

"You heard about that?" Paul asks.

"Of course, I think everyone heard about the mysterious disappearing plane. I would like the details now, though."

"Well, we're still not very clear on the details." Paul says.

"Paul, you haven't touched your wine, would you like something else?" Theo says.

"No, thank you." Paul says.

"Any ideas?" I ask Alva.

"Rather sounded like your description of a dimensional bubble, but it was in midair, and everyone on the plane experienced something different."

"Rather sounds like a energy ribbon, then, don't you think?"

"A _what_?" Paul and Alva say in unison.

"It's rather difficult to explain, I think, since the name seems to say it all. It's a ribbon of energy, constantly fluxating, that probably shoved your plane into something some people call the Nexus. Why it wasn't clearly visible without instrumentation is completely unclear, though." I say, trying to pay less attention to the fact that Theo has seen fit to begin brushing her hair at the table. I should be used to it by now.

"Well, we have no explanations at all for the occurrence, so yours is as good as any." Alva says.

"No. The correct answer is always better. That's why I'm assuming that the file has remained open." I say.

"It has." Paul says.

"Great. Now, I have a friend in Seattle who has recently become aware of Rose Red and it has come to my attention that you have never suggested an expedition. Does it appear too dangerous, or is it completely uninteresting to you?" I ask.

"I have no way to get into the house, so I try not to tempt myself like that." Alva says.

"Have you heard the tales, Paul?" Theo asks.

"Not really. I've heard bits and pieces of rumors, but nothing of any detail." Paul says, rather nervously.

"I have a friend who allowed her findings to be put into a fiction novel, I think I still have the book if you want to take a look later." I say, wishing that Paul would talk a little more to Alva so that I could actually get some food into my mouth.

"You can't tell me anything now?" Paul asks evenly.


End file.
